


Intangibles

by cruisedirector



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), Iron Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Asgard (Marvel), Background Het, Bisexual Male Character, Community: contrelamontre, Love Triangles, M/M, Male Friendship, POV Second Person, Polyamory, Remix, Superheroes, Time Skips, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-16
Updated: 2012-11-16
Packaged: 2018-02-25 15:29:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2626787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cruisedirector/pseuds/cruisedirector
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years from now you'll be surprised by which one loves you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Intangibles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [karelian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/karelian/gifts).



> I wrote this story ten years ago for the Contrelamontre flash-forward challenge. I'm not quite sure what inspired me to wake up one morning thinking it had to be remixed from Steve Rogers' perspective. It's unbetaed in this incarnation, and I only know movieverse, so feel free to tell me all the ways I've screwed up Marvel canon.

Unlikely as it may seem, the two of you will end up becoming friends. After the Avengers go your separate ways, he'll convince you to come back to New York, take you out for Mediterranean food, remind you that you're still part of an initiative that's bigger than all of you. Every year on Veterans Day, no matter where you are, he'll manage to find you, to thank you for your service, even though he's as cynical about the army as he is about everything else, including love. 

When you're able to have a permanent residence, he'll call out of the blue to see how you are. He'll have one of his assistants send you cards for holidays, he'll even remember your birthday. He'll try to introduce you to his friends. He'll lobby defense contractors to hire you so he can work with you again.

When you run into him at big events, you'll always get a big greeting. A secret grin. A hug. His arm around you no matter how many cameras are around. That won't have changed in five years, or ten. Tony's like that.

Whereas with Thor, the day he leaves for Asgard, he'll consign you to the past. He won't forget you -- he'll probably get a bard to write a song about you that will rival any epic from Norse mythology. He'll think of you every time he does something heroic, even though he's a hero born, not made. His brother will wise up to the fact that even if Tony is the brilliant one, Bruce is the strong one, and Natasha is the fearless one, it's your face that makes Thor's knees go just a tiny bit wobbly when Loki turns into someone else for him. 

But Thor won't know or care about your birthday. You'll think you might never hear from him again; there will not be a message even when he's on the planet with Jane, saving Jane, saving the universe. You know he'll think about you, but he'll pass up every opportunity to see you, like a sacrificial king. And even though you'll expect that, it will sting. You'll feel stupid for wanting to stay in touch. Eventually you'll stop trying.

One day you'll pick up a children's book about mythology and realize that whatever you might be to America, to Thor you're no Fandral, you're no Volstagg, you're no Sif. You'll pull out the mobile phone that Nick Fury insisted you should have, but it isn't as though you can dial Asgard the way you could dial the White House if you had to. Nothing will ever change in that regard. Thor's like that.

"Calling Captain America. Are you there, or reliving the 1940s?" Tony's in your face right now, and you can't help feeling a tiny bit irritated that he's interrupted your thoughts, even though he's saved you from moping and will do so again some time when you really need it. You blink up at dark piercing eyes, reminding yourself that Tony's been reconstructed just like yourself, the handsomeness is enhanced, but you know the pleasure is real, always. It's not complicated with Tony. When he's happy he lets you see it and when he's grumpy he lets you know it, but the affection is there either way.

The last time the three of you were together, Tony made you laugh with some joke about government bureaucracy, and you caught Thor looking over at you out of eyes that were narrowed and impenetrable, taking in the two of you. For a moment he wasn't Thor at all, but the god of thunder, and you wondered how much that altered his perceptions of you, a pair of puny humans mocking their own leaders. There's a piece of Thor that you'll never get near, which you've glimpsed only at moments like when he realized your shield could match his hammer, moments after he'd nearly killed you in the woods. You think maybe it's because he knows he's so much stronger -- if you were Bruce, you might have a chance, because not even a god can injure the Hulk, but without the shield you're even more vulnerable than Thor without Mjolnir.

You've already lived much longer than you should have, and Thor is going to outlive all of you no matter how many improvements Tony makes to that suit of his. So you understand why he needs his distance from all humans, even Jane, and because of what his brother has done to him, he's distant with everyone, maybe less with you than most. You think that by the time you've known him long enough to see the whole picture, it will already be too late. There will be another generation of heroes for Thor, while you've already lived more than one generation past your time.

But the light shifts and there's Thor smiling at you, just for you, and your heartbeat surges. "Let's find dinner," he says, never a question but a command with him, so you nod silently even though you know you should ask Tony too. He's right there, looking from you to Thor out of dark weary eyes that make him look wise beyond his years, though emotionally you think he may be the youngest of all of you, even younger than Coulson with his collector cards and his optimism, and you're undoubtedly hurting Tony's feelings by not inviting him. He'll forgive you, because Tony's like that, but you don't like what it says about you that you still won't open your mouth to say the words, just to have Thor to yourself for a little while.

In a couple of years you'll see a photo of the two of them in a newspaper. You won't be there because everything will have changed -- you'll know that Bucky's alive, you'll have met Sam, you'll have debts to pay -- but the world will need Goldilocks and he'll come no matter how much he might not want to. Of course Tony will be there, because somehow Tony always manages to know when something big needs saving, even if Tony has managed deliberately not to know what happened to his parents and why he keeps sabotaging things with Pepper. 

In the photo, Tony will be wearing the same grin for Thor that he sometimes wears for you. You'll even have your own photos to prove it: photos of Captain America and Iron Man at another celebration, in another country, from another era, with Tony embracing you exuberantly, and both of you looking so happy, much happier than Thor will look with Tony trying to stroke his hair.

You've known that jealousy was beneath you since you first had to shut down your suspicions about Peggy and an earlier Stark, and jealousy over Thor who's with no one but himself and maybe sometimes Jane is especially stupid. Still, you'll wish you could get drunk and hate Tony for a few days, until he tracks you down even though you're supposed to be off the grid, wishing you'd been there too, thrilled about his new adventures and wanting to hear about yours. He'll ask whether you've heard from Thor and swear that Thor said he wanted to visit you, except Thor's worried how things are in Asgard and you know how it is with Thor. You'll flinch from the familiar, practiced nonchalance in Tony's voice, and wonder what Thor ever did apart from helping save Earth to deserve either of you.

But in the here and now, the god of thunder is still smiling, eyes fixed on you, promising more than dinner, more than the urgent pleasure that's surprised you since that first almost-accidental touch when you stood toe to toe pretending you weren't comparing muscles. You imagine an evening of deep conversation and stretches of quiet, out among the trees or straining in a gym, stretched out on the ground or on the sofa or, if you're lucky, in your bed, where the past and future don't matter, maybe don't even exist except in the imagination of a god. Thor gives you here, now, what's in this moment completely.

No one has ever given you that feeling before, and you can't imagine giving it up willingly, not for anything, not for anyone except Bucky who's even more lost to you than Thor. Even Tony understands that, and he doesn't seem to resent it. You wonder, without Thor, whether there would be a you-and-Tony or if that would remain in the realm of the unnecessary. And whether that makes it wrong. You think Iron Man deserves better from both of you, but you don't want to give him up to Thor and you can't give up Thor even if he isn't really yours to lose. 

Years from now you'll look at Tony with guilt and gratitude, and only then will you realize that he holds on to you because you let him...because you like it. That you matter to him more, maybe, than someone who may be the most worthy of all of you, except that he isn't here.

Then, as now, you won't know which is the real thing and which the shadow. You're like that.


End file.
